Toll plazas in Sindh appear with uncomfortable frequency. One pays again and again, often without any visible improvement in road conditions.
- Broken surfaces, poor maintenance, unsafe design, and a lack of basic facilities remain common. The question naturally arises: what exactly are these tolls paying for?
By Abdullah Usman Morai | Sweden
A few months ago, I traveled to the north of Sweden, almost 600 kilometers from Stockholm. As I drove out of the capital, I paid a toll tax once. Later, I paid another at the Sundsvall Bridge. That was all. These charges fall under what Sweden calls an infrastructure tax. The amount was modest, so modest that if I convert it into Pakistani rupees, it would barely cross seven hundred PKR.
What struck me even more than the amount was the absence of constant reminders. There were no endless signboards warning of upcoming toll plazas, no repeated deductions, no feeling of being trapped in a system designed to squeeze every possible coin from ordinary citizens. The process was automated, transparent, and limited.
Then I visited Pakistan, particularly Sindh, and the contrast was impossible to ignore.
Here, toll plazas appear with uncomfortable frequency. One pays again and again, often without any visible improvement in road conditions. Broken surfaces, poor maintenance, unsafe design, and a lack of basic facilities remain common. The question naturally arises: what exactly are these tolls paying for?
It does not take long to realize that this system disproportionately burdens the common citizen. The elite and powerful, those with influence, exemptions, or clever legal cover, often escape taxation altogether. Unless a tax is automatically linked to a vehicle or system, many resourceful individuals simply do not pay. The result is a deeply unfair structure where rules are designed by the powerful for the poor, while the same powerful class quietly violates or bypasses them.
This creates a dangerous imbalance. When those who design policies do not feel their impact, governance loses its moral foundation. Taxes, instead of being a collective contribution to public welfare, turn into a punishment for those without power.
The toll issue does not stop at private vehicles. Every additional toll plaza increases the cost for goods transport vehicles. Trucks carrying food, fuel, medicine, and daily necessities must pay repeatedly. That cost does not vanish; it is passed directly to consumers. Ultimately, it is the ordinary household that pays more for vegetables, flour, construction material, and almost everything else. Tolls, in such a system, quietly become an invisible tax on survival.
Sweden offers a different philosophy. Toll taxes are not imposed blindly. There are no tolls on weekends, no tolls on red days (public holidays), and no tolls on the days before red days. Even on working days, tolls apply only during specific hours, not before 6:00 a.m. and not after 6:30 p.m. The idea is simple: taxation should regulate traffic, support infrastructure, and respect citizens’ lives, not suffocate them.
More importantly, people in Sweden can see where their money goes. Roads are well-maintained, signage is clear, safety standards are high, and the public trusts them. Taxes there feel like a contribution. Here, they often feel like extortion.
When powerful people do not pay, taxes lose their legitimacy. When tolls increase without improving infrastructure, they lose their justification. And when policies repeatedly target those already struggling, inequality deepens, not just economically, but psychologically.
A fair system is not one where everyone pays the same amount, but one where everyone pays according to the same rules. Until policymakers themselves are subject to the laws they create, toll plazas will remain symbols not of development, but of disparity.
Roads, after all, are meant to connect people, not divide them into payers and escapees.
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Abdullah Soomro, penname Abdullah Usman Morai, hailing from Moro town of Sindh, province of Pakistan, is based in Stockholm Sweden. Currently he is working as Groundwater Engineer in Stockholm Sweden. He did BE (Agriculture) from Sindh Agriculture University Tando Jam and MSc water systems technology from KTH Stockholm Sweden as well as MSc Management from Stockholm University. Beside this he also did masters in journalism and economics from Shah Abdul Latif University Khairpur Mirs, Sindh. He is author of a travelogue book named ‘Musafatoon’. His second book is in process. He writes articles from time to time. A frequent traveler, he also does podcast on YouTube with channel name: VASJE Podcast.
